Nutrient injection systems are used to deliver various nutrients to plants. The success of a crop often relies on the nutrients fed to plants. Even a slight malfunction in the delivery of nutrients can be extremely costly, leading to plant death or the destruction of an entire crop. Moreover, the nutrients themselves are expensive. Therefore, nutrient waste caused by an ineffective nutrient injection system can also result in significant consequences.
Many existing nutrient injection systems inject nutrients directly into a delivery line as water is on its way to a plant. This prevents individual batches of predefined formulas, which makes it difficult to mix the formula properly and creates inconsistencies in the delivered formula over time. Systems that require hand-mixing of batches likewise create inconsistencies in mixing and formula composition because of human error.
In addition, existing systems do not permit configuration of a formula or the system components based on user preferences. Moreover, when changes are made to one variable of a formula, traditional systems do not automatically compensate for such changes in all other variables to ensure a consistent formula is batched and delivered to the plants. Finally, these systems do not have safeguards in place to stop delivery of nutrients to a plant when the system or a component thereof malfunctions. Therefore, there exists a need for an improved nutrient injection system.
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